Physician Assistant Jailed for Running Oxycodone Distribution Scheme

Long Island-based physician assistant Michael Troyan, has been sentenced to 5 years in prison for leading an illegal oxycodone distribution scheme.

Troyan was also ordered to forfeit the $710,000 made during the scheme, and to serve 3 years under a supervised release, according to Newsday.

In an investigation led by the Long Island drug diversion unit of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Troyan was found to be responsible for distributing more than 70,000 pills over the course of 4 years.

DEA agents videotaped Troyan in his office writing fake prescriptions for oxycodone in exchange for cash, said Eastern District Assistant US Attorney Allen Bode.

In court, Troyan said he accepted full responsibility for his actions and that it was driven by addiction rather than greed. However, US District Judge Denis Hurley disagreed and said that given the scope of the distribution scheme, he felt the defendant was primarily motivated by greed, Newsday reported.

“This sentence serves as a stern warning to all medical professionals entrusted with authority to prescribe controlled substances that there is a price to pay for such criminal conduct,” US Attorney Robert Capers said in a Newsday statement.

Former Southampton Councilman Bradley Bender played a lesser role in the scheme by involving himself in the distribution of several thousand pills. He plead guilty in November 2015 and received a 2-year sentence.

“For years, Troyan supplied Bender and others with phony prescriptions for huge quantities of oxycodone pills, which bender filled and illegally exchanged for cash and steroids with another co-conspirator,” US Attorney Capers said. “The oxycodone pills were then resold to drug abusers, sustaining the destructive abuse of opioid analgesics in our community.”

The scheme came to light after an unnamed surgeon reported Troyan as a possible drug dealer when he was seen by one of Troyan’s patients who was addicted to oxycodone and had used a pencil to rip open the stitches of a tonsillectomy to gain access to the drugs.